When the Music Ended, the Crowd Dispersed

Li Yan's face twisted, sweat the size of soybeans rolling down in torrents. His ambush had just been broken, and one of his legs was already useless.

Strategist Ji's face was equally savage. He felt that he was about to be unable to hold on. His right hand pulled back with force again, dragging Li Yan to within mere inches of his body, almost against his left hand. Li Yan had just witnessed Hong Linying's death and had already formed a suspicion. Dong Fuyi had told him that Strategist Ji had mastered several immortal arts and warned him to be careful. That had to be one of them.

Li Yan felt the pulling force of the large hand pressing atop his crown increase again. He drove his spiritual power even more frantically toward his crown and lower body. He wanted to make his stance heavier, hoping that before his spiritual power was drained dry, Strategist Ji's fire poison would claim his life first.

Thus, the two of them bitterly held on. Strategist Ji already saw figures swaying before his eyes, his head spinning and swelling. Fury rushed up within him until his eyes nearly split open. He bit down on the tip of his tongue, regaining a little clarity. His eyes were bloodshot as he suddenly released all the spiritual power within his body that had been suppressing the fire poison, dividing it into two streams. A small stream flowed toward his left hand, while the greater part poured entirely into his right hand. He gave a savage tug.

Li Yan gritted his teeth and endured bitterly, his entire body drenched as though he had been washed in water. With the spiritual power in his body being expended so desperately, he too had reached the point where the lamp had run dry and the oil was exhausted. His heart pounded, "Thump, thump," when he suddenly felt an even greater force descend from atop his crown. He judged that this was Strategist Ji's final gamble. Hardening his heart, he abruptly withdrew all the spiritual power he had been channeling into his crown and lower body.

Strategist Ji felt all resistance in his right hand vanish abruptly. Li Yan flew backward into his embrace. Though he had meant to pull Li Yan over in the first place, this sudden change still caught him off guard. The unpleasant sensation of misdirected force was like striking empty air with all his might, and the hand seal formed by his left hand was delayed considerably.

Slow as it sounded, it happened in an instant. Li Yan had already collapsed against him. The moment he entered his embrace, Li Yan suddenly raised his head, then swiftly snapped it violently. A cold flash gleamed beneath the moon.

Before Strategist Ji could react and press the Fireball Technique onto him before immediately flinging Li Yan away, he felt a stabbing pain in his throat. Then, the strength and blood throughout his body seemed to find an outlet, spraying violently from that spot. Panic seized him. Instinctively, he tried to pull back his right hand to cover the wound, but the Spirit-Absorbing Art was still slowly operating, and he could not withdraw it. In his desperation, the last trace of spiritual power in his body surged into his right hand and burst forth wildly, trying to shove Li Yan away.

The spraying blood spun and danced through the night like flowers on the other shore, splattering Li Yan's face until he looked like a vicious ghost. Between his blood-spattered teeth, he still clenched a thin blade that glimmered with an eerie light. Dazed, he felt a stream of spiritual power shoot in through his crown. He could sense fire spiritual power that he himself had previously poured out, as well as unfamiliar wood spiritual power and fire poison several times denser than that within his own body, all pouring into him. How could he have any strength left to resist? In merely two breaths, those forces all flooded into his body.

Li Yan leaned crookedly against a tree, his breathing feeble. The thin blade in his mouth had long since fallen limply onto his body. Beside him, Strategist Ji lay in a pool of blood.

A cultivator's life truly was far tougher than that of an ordinary person. In the pool of blood, Strategist Ji had a deep, ragged gash across his throat, flesh turned outward. His body twitched again and again, his eyes fixed stubbornly upward on Li Yan. Bloody bubbles rose from his mouth as he made hissing sounds.

"You coughed blood while cultivating."

"Hehe, you figured it out too? Hiss." Li Yan leaned against the tree without the slightest fear of the bloody scene before him, as though what lay before him was merely a dying, mangled demon beast he had hunted in Great Green Mountain in the past. He sucked in a breath as waves of bone-piercing pain came from his legs.

"From the moment I learned that you treated me like a pig penned up for slaughter, I began planning how to escape, how to keep you from harming me and my family. Hehe, stop making that hissing sound. I know you want to know many, many things, but if I explained them all one by one, could you even listen to the end? So, as for how I learned of your intentions and what immortal art you cultivated, go seek immortality in your next life."

Li Yan spoke weakly. Looking at Strategist Ji's wide eyes and unwilling gaze, he saw his chest heaving violently and heard louder hissing from his throat. Li Yan gave a soft laugh. He knew that Strategist Ji understood what he meant by the words "seek immortality."

"I used the books you had annotated to practice your handwriting. I used the scent of countless flowers and grasses to place the scent of Sound-Knowing Insects on you. I kept buying all sorts of things to exhaust your Divine Sense."

"I told you, don't look at me like that. I can cultivate other immortal arts, so naturally I know Divine Sense exists. I also know that your realm is around the peak of the third layer of the Qi Condensation Realm, and that you used your Divine Sense to inspect me every day.

"Once you decided that the things I bought were all insignificant, you would relax your guard. I had brothers at the Ironware Pavilion make blade-hiding boots, a soft sword belt, and an extremely small thin blade that could only be held in the mouth. Those things were merely simple mechanisms and objects. Though my brother could not make them, his senior brother and master could. Hehe.

"Other than the soft sword belt, which was too conspicuous around my waist and might be discovered if your Divine Sense swept over me carelessly, I wore the other things and practiced with them once you could no longer be bothered to pay much attention to my purchases every time I entered the city. The blade-hiding boots were just a simple mechanism. A few practices were enough to get used to them. Cough, cough, cough."

The fire poison in Li Yan's body had also been drawn out by the wood spiritual power that had rebounded into him, along with the fire poison mixed within it. He felt as though his abdomen were ablaze. Even the pain from his broken leg and the wound on his other thigh had faded. He panted heavily for a moment.

"But secretly practicing with this thin blade beneath my tongue every day truly made me suffer enough. It cut my whole mouth bloody, and I still had to pretend it was a backlash of fire poison caused by cultivation. I was terrified that you might discover it if I was not careful, but in the end, it still worked. Hehe. This was not my final trump card. On the mountain, in the forest, the belt, and the boots—every one of them was my final trump card. I was not sure which attempt could kill you, so every time, I tried to finish everything with a single strike. Cough, cough, cough."

Li Yan tilted his head slightly against the tree and looked toward the place not far away where only a small piece of blackened charcoal remained, as well as the burly man who had been turned into a "skewer."

"I just did not want Marshal Hong to end up like this too. I wonder what will become of this Meng Kingdom..." He thought of his father and mother at home, his third brother, his elder sister, that small mountain village, his childhood companions, and the dogs in the village that ran about with their tails tucked between their legs.

With a boom in his mind, he felt that his abdomen had become a sea of fire. Before the last thread of his consciousness faded, he saw that Strategist Ji in the pool of blood had somehow opened his eyes wide and had been dead for quite some time.

"Senior Brother Wu, over here."

Half an hour later, several streaks of light swept across the sky. After arriving above this mountain valley, they circled without pause. More than ten breaths later, one streak of light descended into the forest.

The light faded, revealing a slightly plump young man with a round face and large eyes. He was looking at Strategist Ji in the pool of blood beneath his feet.

Two more streaks of light descended close behind. As the light scattered, a dark-skinned young man with a horse face and a gentle-looking young man appeared. All three wore dark green robes.

The dark-skinned, horse-faced young man took several steps to the plump youth's side.

"Junior Brother Lu, your Little Searching Technique has become ever more exquisite. You found him before us." Before the dark-skinned, horse-faced youth could speak, the gentle youth behind him smiled and said this.

"Hehe, this junior brother is timid, so when I go out, I have to inspect the surroundings more carefully. I have made Senior Brother Yu laugh at me." Hearing this, the plump youth turned and gave the gentle youth a bashful smile, though a faint trace of pride still showed on his face.

After the three of them came to a stop, they each looked around their surroundings.

"This is that strategist."

The dark-skinned, horse-faced youth called Senior Brother Wu crouched down and carefully examined Strategist Ji in the pool of blood before speaking coldly.

The other two hurried over and looked as well.

After looking for a while, the plump youth nodded. "He does resemble the appearance described in the jade slip sent by the senior brothers of the Enforcement Team. It is just that there is too much blood on his face, and it is twisted like this. This wound... tsk, tsk. Whoever did this was truly ruthless."

"Senior Brother Wu is right. It must be him. His features are seventy or eighty percent similar to those in the jade slip. Aside from the pained distortion from having his throat cut, the rest resembles the appearance of someone who entered the Black Night Curtain Green Technique improperly. Besides, there is also the item in Senior Brother Wu's hand. Hehe."

At this moment, Senior Brother Wu was holding the jade book that had originally hung at Strategist Ji's waist. He nodded as well.

"Mm. This is indeed the cultivation technique taken away by that outer sect traitor. Search him again and see whether that paper book is also on him."

The gentle youth smiled upon hearing this. With a flick of his finger, the black robe on Strategist Ji's body fell open. He crouched down and, moments later, pulled out a book from within Strategist Ji's inner clothes.

"Hehe, he carried it with him. That saves us brothers the trouble of searching his residence." The gentle youth handed the book to Senior Brother Wu.

"This man is already dead, so he cannot enjoy the Soul-Wrapping Threadworms. His disciple should be the person leaning against that tree. Clearly, he too cultivated the incomplete Black Night Curtain Green Technique and is close to death now."

After taking the book, Senior Brother Wu looked at Strategist Ji's corpse, then turned toward Li Yan.

He saw the thin blade that had fallen onto Li Yan's chest and frowned.

"That strategist should have died by this person's hand. The two people beside him were clearly struck by the Fireball Technique and Wood Spike Technique. What happened here?"

He turned to look again at Marshal Hong, who had become a small pile of charcoal, and the burly man who had died a most miserable death.

"Hehe, Senior Brother Wu, that strategist clearly made a mistake while cultivating our sect's technique. What use could his disciple possibly have? Hehe." The gentle youth spoke blandly.

"Mm. Judging from the scene, this disciple must have been with those two. Perhaps this disciple saw through the strategist's intentions and joined forces with two martial arts experts to besiege him, leading to this outcome." After hearing that, Senior Brother Wu examined the scene again. After a brief contemplation, he spoke as though he had realized something.

"Hmph. That strategist was a fool too. He thought he could remove the fire poison in his body through such a lowly method. How laughable. What did he take our sect's cultivation technique for?" The plump youth gave a cold snort.

"It is only a pity for this disciple. He must have suffered an undeserved calamity." The gentle youth shook his head.

"Then let me finish him. There is no need to bring him back to suffer the Soul-Wrapping Threadworms. Otherwise, we would have to spend effort treating him and waste pills."

The plump youth curled his fingers, about to form a hand seal. Senior Brother Wu nodded coldly as well.

"Wait."

Just as the plump youth's immortal art was about to shoot forth, the gentle youth beside him fixed his gaze on Li Yan and hurriedly stopped him.

The sudden shout by his ear made the plump youth's hand tremble, causing his hand seal to scatter. He nearly suffered a backlash himself.

"Senior Brother Yu, you cannot do that. At such close range, people can be scared to death by other people." The plump youth muttered.

The gentle youth stepped forward and sent a stream of spiritual power into Li Yan's abdomen. When Senior Brother Wu heard his shout, he merely frowned and said nothing. But when he saw the gentle youth cast such a technique the next moment, he too focused his attention on Li Yan. In the next moment, he could not help but give a soft cry of surprise.

Several breaths later, the gentle youth raised his head and looked at Senior Brother Wu. The two spoke at the same time. "Fragmented Poison Body."

The plump youth had still been looking at the two of them in confusion. Upon hearing those words, he froze. "How could we possibly kill him now?"

Dawn had brightened the eastern sky. It was another clear early summer day.

In the morning, the air at the foot of Great Green Mountain was fresh. Birdsong rang ceaselessly over the small mountain village. Cooking smoke already curled up from the village, green smoke drifting in winding trails toward the distance. Beyond the village, dark green wheat fields encircled it, layer upon layer of terraced fields stretching outward. Here and there, several plots of yellow rapeseed flowers dotted the verdant wheat.

Since spring, the winds and rains had arrived in their proper season. Presumably, the consequences brought by the locust plague would be over in another month.

Uncle Chang set down his bowl and chopsticks, wiped the oil from his mouth, and grinned broadly. Life had gone very smoothly for the past few months, and his family circumstances had gradually grown more prosperous. Apart from the sum paid when Fifth had enlisted, that little brat brought home more than ten taels of silver every month. In this brief half year, they had accumulated quite a lot—enough to support them for decades in a remote mountain village like this.

Yesterday, they had brought back another belt from the city. The village chief said that the belt had been bestowed by Lord Ji of the city and was to be placed in the village ancestral hall. Uncle Chang had argued fiercely with Li Guoxin over it, but in the end, he had agreed only half willingly. Yet his face had been full of pride. Li Guoxin had agreed that during this year's ancestral rites, Uncle Chang's family would stand at the very front of the entire village, light the incense, offer the incense, and recite the prayers. Yesterday, Uncle Chang had wandered around the village quite a bit, just to see the envious looks of the village men, young and old, and hear their occasional flattering greetings.

"We will not be going to the fields today. Last night, I called over some village laborers. With such fine weather, we should repair the house properly. This afternoon, we will start building several more rooms beside it. Third's wedding can be held in autumn." After setting down his bowl, Uncle Chang stood up and strode out with high spirits. Li Wei scratched his head sheepishly, picked up the tools by the wall while limping, and followed him out.

Li Yan's mother looked at the two of them. "Look at how capable you two think you are, like you could fly into the sky. Xiaozhu, later you and I will cut up and wash that half pig. At noon, we must let the people helping repair the house eat and drink well. Only then will they work even harder when we build the rooms afterward."

After a pause, she looked at Li Xiaozhu, who was beaming happily nearby, and her expression changed. "You, honestly. Why is that husband's family of yours so useless? Spring has already passed, yet they still have no money to come and marry you. Fine, our family does not lack your one mouth to feed now. Once your third brother's house is built, I will find a matchmaker and find you another family."

Li Xiaozhu stamped her foot and ran outside.